Foxtel launches unlimited broadband plans

news Pay TV giant Foxtel today launched a set of broadband plans offering unlimited download quota, although customers will need to be signed up to its subscription television offering to get the full benefits.

In a statement, Foxtel said the new plans were designed “eliminate household concerns over exceeding monthly data caps”.

Andrew Lorken, Foxtel’s Executive Director of Broadband, IT and PMO, said: “Customers are telling us they love the combination of Foxtel’s unbeatable premium TV entertainment and our broadband and home phone services, and that they are growing hungrier for broadband data to feed their insatiable appetite for online entertainment such as Foxtel’s on-demand video streaming service Anytime.”

“Our new unlimited broadband bundles satisfy this hunger, giving our customers the freedom to browse, stream and connect with friends on multiple devices in their homes at any time of the day or night without worrying about data usage.”

“And when combined with the Foxtel Hub, Foxtel’s very own WiFi modem, built with the latest modem technology and designed to deliver fast WiFi speeds and great in-home coverage, it’s easy to see how Foxtel’s new unlimited broadband bundles are truly ‘built for entertainment’.”

The plans — on offer from today — start at $115 per month on a 12 or 24 month plan for new customers, with existing Foxtel Platinum HD TV subscribers paying $95 per month on a 12 or 24 month plan. Those who take up a 24 month plan will receive a Foxtel Hub — the pay TV giant’s Wi-Fi broadband modem — at no extra charge.

For customers who don’t need unlimited data, Foxtel will also now offer a new 100GB~ broadband and home phone bundle for $80~ per month on a 12 or 24 month plan, when bundled with or added to any Foxtel TV package.

In total, Foxtel is offering three different broadband plans — two including unlimited broadband (one featuring Foxtel’s Platinum HD option) and one with 100GB of broadband quota.

Unlimited ‘standard’ local calls are includes across all three bundles, with the added benefit of unlimited standard national calls included in the unlimited broadband bundles. Foxtel will also waive download limits for Foxtel TV on the company’s Go and Anytime offerings when customers are also using a Foxtel broadband plan, and a single bill for all of the services customers buy from Foxtel.

The real cost of the plans, however, is buried in Foxtel’s fine print. The company states that the minimum cost of its broadband bundles is $3459 to $5979 on a 24 month plan, depending on the attached TV pack, including a $99 “bundle activation fee”. The minimum cost on a 24 month plan with the 100GB option can be as low as $2,619. Customers on the 100GB plan will have their broadband connection slowed to 256kbps if they use up their monthly data quota.

opinion/analysis
If you watch a lot of Foxtel and are attached to the company’s subscription television packages, then this could be a worthwhile broadband series of broadband plans, and I welcome yet another Australian ISP moving to the “unlimited” broadband quota model which is so popular in countries such as the United States.

However, for everyone else, I would say you really need to be careful when signing up to one of these Foxtel broadband plans.

With this in mind, I think people should really make sure that they know what they are getting into here … I found all the terms and the costs relatively incomprehensible, as I usually do whenever I examine Foxtel broadband or subscription TV packages.

15 COMMENTS

I have to assume this is an ADSL connection? The Foxtel website states it uses the “Telstra Broadband” network, surely that means this isn’t available on the NBN…. So… why would I sign up for a faux “unlimited” connection with them for $140 a month total, when I could sign up for TPG faux “unlimited” for $60 a month and save $80?

Unless I was already locked in to pay for Foxtel at an overpriced margin… Netflix + Stan + Hulu = Plenty of entertainment.

Definitely ADSL – tried checking a NBN address and it wouldn’t let me order. “Looks like NBN is available in your area, or will be in the near future. Foxtel is working hard to offer NBN services as soon as possible. Check back with us at a later date.”

“And when combined with the Foxtel Hub, Foxtel’s very own WiFi modem, built with the latest modem technology and designed to deliver fast WiFi speeds and great in-home coverage, it’s easy to see how Foxtel’s new unlimited broadband bundles are truly ‘built for entertainment’.”

Unlimited ADSL – contended and congested so much so you’ll never receive even the throughput of your connection/line sync speed.

It looks like they want the cash cow that are people who are using foxtel for their media. They won’t be downloading/p2p so its safe to say that these services will have a ridiculous contention ratio since they’ll be under utilised.

It is ADSL. Foxtel was working on NBN when I worked for them back in Septmeber (before their monthly redundancy cuts). Looks like they still couldn’t get round to offering it now. They had so many customers joining up when it was first released and then begging to be disconnected so they could go back to iiNet/ TPG/ Dodo/ Optus/ Telstra etc. Foxtels traffic management and CDN arrangements are immature at best and faulty at worst. And in a 24 month term those prices are atrocious. If I could get decent internet where we are, we would ditch them and find as much content via internet subscriptions.

Unlimited – yeah right, they’ll cut you off if you use too much just like every ISP that ever offered an unlimited plan.

Unlimited plans only work in the US because all the peering is local or very, very cheap. An unlimited plan in Australia, if someone manages to get a 20mbps ADSL connection on it and exclusively uses international peering heavily to download stuff will generate in excess of 6500gb per month or exactly 20mbps of transit capacity. Transit capacity can be as high as $150/mbps so that one customer will cost $3000 in transit fees in a single month where they only paid $100 for the connection, let’s say. ISPs are quick to kill these customers thanks to the acceptable use policies they require you to sign.

“Unlimited – yeah right, they’ll cut you off if you use too much just like every ISP that ever offered an unlimited plan.”
Practically unheard of – any references that don’t include the shite known as Exetel?

Just spent a weekend in a resort with two of the premium movie channels, they were SBS-quality productions at best (not to say that’s bad, just not our thang). We ended up watching FTA. I haven’t watched FTA in years…

Netflix + Stan + Hulu = Plenty of entertainment but what about all the sport that Foxtel offer, AFL, NRL, Soccer (the new channels BeIn sport 1,2 and 3),motor racing, etc, to me I am very happy with all that Foxtel provides, the unlimited bundle deal is fantastic, the service is superior. I was with Internode prior to joining up with Foxtel for my internet and with Internode using the Fritzbox 7272 our household had speed issues when there was more than one using the net, with Foxtel and the Foxtel Hub the 3 of us in our household all use YouTube at the same time and we don`t have any buffering issues and the download speed is great. Foxtel is number 1, keep up the great work. My town goes live with the NBN in October and Foxtel just told me with a email yesterday that they should be providing NBN by then. To me anyone of the comments here is just whinging, everyone talks about the English being whinges, you should all take a look at yourselves.

Comment corrected, To me everyone of the comments here is just whinging, everyone talks about the English being whinges, you should all take a look at yourselves.

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